(This is the second in a two-part series. Read the first instalment from Neil here)
I had also never driven an E39 M5. This was the 1998 successor to the E34, and the first M5 to come with a V8 engine. A pretty mighty V8 engine too, with 400hp from its 5.0-litre capacity. While the E39’s bodywork isn’t, to my eyes, as delicately pretty as that of the E34 (which inherited some of the Marcello Gandini genes from the original 5 Series) it’s still a subtle and understated looking car, especially compared to the visual bombast of the new G90 M5 plug-in hybrid.
Compared to that car, this dark grey E39 saloon is incredibly simple. It has a V8 engine up front, a six-speed manual gearbox sat next to your hip in the middle and drive to the rear wheels. A hot-rod in a business suit, and one that many people consider to be the best M5 ever made. Time to find out...
This time, thanks to the relative newness of the car - a mere 22 years old, this one - I headed straight for the A9 Autobahn that runs past BMW M’s headquarters in the Munich suburb of Garching. Dropping two perfectly spaced cogs in the manual shift allowed the V8 to bellow its mighty tune - like a NASCAR small-block that’s been to an expensive Swiss finishing school - and this old car, older than my almost-grown up kids - flung itself without hesitation to 200km/h. More would have been easily possible, but heavy traffic intervened.
This E39 M5 feels like a vastly more modern car than the E34, in spite of the fact that one directly replaced the other. It feels on the verge of being truly modern in fact, possibly helped by the early touchscreen integrated into the dashboard. Its reflexes also feel more aggressively sporty. In many ways, the new G90 M5 has gone back to the E34 for some of its more luxurious, more pliant personality. By contrast, the E39 feels as if you could just add some stickers and go and tackle the Nürburgring 24-hour race without changing a single thing.
And so, much to my surprise, the E39 has leaped up the charts to become my second-favourite M5 of all time (the F90 M5 CS remains, for now, at the top of the tree). Yes, the E34 will forever have my heart, my first Munich love if you will. But while I love the E34, the E39 is the one I’d run away with...